Microsoft 365 Copilot now works with plugins, making it much more powerful

What you need to know

• Microsoft 365 Copilot now works with plugins, allowing developers to integrate apps and services with the tool.
• Developers can use one platform to create plugins that work across ChatGPT, Bing, Dynamics 365 Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Plugins are a major theme of Microsoft Build 2023, which also saw the expansion of plugin support for Bing Chat.

Two of the themes of Microsoft Build 2023 are plugins and copilot, so it's only fitting that Microsoft announced the expansion of Microsoft 365 Copilot to support plugins. First unveiled in March of this year, Microsoft 365 Copilot brings together Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Teams through the power of AI. That's great if your workflow is exclusively within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, but plugins should take the service to the next level.

Plugins allow developers to integrate existing apps and services into Microsoft 365 Copilot. Those that are part of the Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program will be able to use over 50 plugins. Atlassian, Adobe, ServiceNow, Thomson Reuters, Moveworks, and Mural are already on board, but Microsoft said that thousands of plugins will become available in the coming months.

That high figure is due in part to the fact that Microsoft will integrate existing Teams message extensions and Power Platform connectors into Microsoft 365 Copilot. Bing plugins are supported as well. The Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and CLI can already be used by developers to create Teams message extensions that will also work as plugins for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Microsoft adopted the same open plugin standard that OpenAI uses for ChatGPT. As a result, developers can use a single platform to build plugins that will be able to work with ChatGPT, Bing, Dynamics 365 Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Any AI application made with Azure OpenAI Service will be interoperable with the plugin standard by default as well.

Microsoft 365 Copilot isn't the only service to receive plugin support this year. Microsoft also announced that Bing Chat will be enhanced through plugins.